Featured
Jun
13
iOS Tooling
8 min read
How to Manage Secret Environment Vars in Xcode and CI
The tutorial provides a solution for managing secrets as environment variables in Xcode and CI
Dec
08
Mobile App Architecture
22 min read
Should We Bring Redux to iOS?
One of the things I've been puzzling over recently. Can we benefit much from bringing redux-like architectures to iOS? How? And how can we get most of it?
Sep
10
iOS Tooling
10 min read
CI/CD Pipeline Setup with GitHub Actions for iOS Project
That kind of things are done rather seldom. Luckily if several times a year. That's why I have to look back the process how it's done every time.
sI decided to write a tutorial once, so next time I didn't have to google once again. Probably that would be helpful also for you.
Latest
Oct
03
Note
1 min read
Two-Sided Dopamine Hook Of Social Networks
I'm not sure if it was done intentionally or by chance, as a drawback of the recommendation algorithm design. It looks like guys at Twitter invented a new level of dopamine hook for its users that keeps them engaged and, what's even more important, keeps them posting.
There is a well-known hook that keeps you engaged. It's just a media feed as it is. No one knows what would be the next post in the feed. Although it's optimized to be as interesting for you as possible, it's still rather random.
Your brain is always curious to know what will be next. Once the feed brings something interesting you get excited by the dopamine release spike. That's how you get hooked.
Twitter has a second side of the dopamine hook which is also incredibly addictive. When you post something, you never know how far the publication would take off. I would not be surprised if random posts get boosted additionally.
It allows Twitter to keep you engaged not only when you consume the content, but also when you create the content.
Sep
29
Note
1 min read
I Don’t Like the Recent Days’ Internet
How wrong I was when I thought that the bottom of Instagram was users' daily food allowance showcase. Then it turned into a social lie platform about real life.
I thought it couldn't be worse and was wrong again. It turned into a selling point for second-grade coaches in uninvented areas. That made me run out of patience and I stopped using it.
On Twitter, I got into a weird social bubble. I gave in trying to mute topics and my Twitter feed is a shitstorm of all kinds. It's so bad that I made a second account just to be able to get caught on a dopamine hook of those "You are doing it wrong" AI prompt experts.
My YouTube feed started to remind me of home shopping TV channels from my childhood.
Outside of social networks, it's not even getting better. It's probably worse because social networks don't show that amount of ADs. Half of all websites is a keyword keyword-optimized garbage that is easy to recognize by trying to research any consumer product: backpack, laptop, or whatever.
Is there something wrong with the internet or is it just me?
Sep
24
Homelab
3 min read
Harnessing ZFS Filesystem for Your Homelab: Tips, Caveats, and a Reference Goldmine
ZFS downsides, configuration tips, backups and relplication, encryption, cloud options and more
Sep
18
Relocation
2 min read
Rethinking Quality of Life: How Portugal Changed My Perspective
In the quality of life equation I didn't count anything I couldn't change. Probably, I was wrong.
Sep
12
Homelab
3 min read
Building a Portable Homelab: Tips and Handy Hardware References
Hardware tips and links to consider when building a portable homelab.
Sep
10
Homelab
8 min read
My Digital Nomad's Toolkit: Portable Homelab Overview
I've finally built my portable home lab to streamline the way I deal with my media data storage, backups, archives, etc.
Now I can hardly hold back my excitement about it.
Aug
30
Homelab
2 min read
Backups Matter: The High-Stakes Game of Laptop Ownership
If you use a laptop as your primary daily driver and never make backups, read this.
Aug
03
Finance
4 min read
Making Sense of Crypto ETFs
The whole point of crypto of that you own your assets exclusively. However, there are certain cases when one would prefer ETF instead.
Jul
03
Note
1 min read
Cracking the Dunbar’s Number: From Social Grooming to Like and Retweet
There is a curious thing called Dunbar's number.
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.
Or simply:
The number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.**
Depending on the study and evaluation method, it's considered to be somewhere between 100 and 250, with a commonly used average value of 150. The number is believed to be correlated to the volume of the neocortex.
High Dunbar's number is indeed an evolutionary advantage which is named to be the reason why homo sapiens managed to outperform other species. With the help of languages they(we) levered communication to a new level.
Silly social networks for daily shit posting they say...
Lately, I was watching an Instagram story and caught myself thinking that I know the author so well... which obviously has nothing to do with the reality. I've seen him once IRL.
Silly social networks for daily shit posting or a tool to build bonds with an infinite amount of people from all over the world?
Jun
27
LifeLog
6 min read
On the Weekend I Was Watching My Hometown Captured by Terrorists
How was your weekend? Mine was crazy, but not because of a loud party or a crowded music fest.
I was watching how my hometown was being seized by terrorists online.